What a difference political cultures make in various parts of the world and circumstances!
What the US Republican presidential contender, considers as “locker room banter”, has come under sustained and shocked criticism from nearly all corners of the American public.
Even the athletes whom he thought he could lean on, have distanced themselves from his lewd comments about groping women’s sexual parts and kissing appreciative married women.
They say that they never make such vulgar language in their locker rooms and that Trump should not refer his obscene language to disparage their sporting character.
In recorded comments Trump made eleven years ago to Billy Bush – former president George W. Bush’s son – prior to taping a reality TV show, Trump unguardedly made the loutish talk that women simply fell under his spell because he was rich and a television star – and it did not matter whoever they were.
The expose has gone viral and marked this US presidential contest more as a matter for moral aptitude rather than policy considerations.
Despite Trump apologizing to the American women, in their second presidential debate with Democratic contender, Hillary Clinton, the billionaire’s low regard for women, and by extension, Blacks, Latinos and Muslim immigrants, has marked him out clearly as a bigoted White American seeking the White House.
In Africa, where women are still treated as near chattel as possible, the matter would simply have been laughed off uproariously and swept under the dirty carpet of corruption, bribery, kickbacks and all the attendant political evil.
For instance, in Niger, women understand being married off between the ages of 13 and 18; being divorced subsequently; and, other younger women taking their places. In Somalia, Senegal and Egypt, the girls’ genital mutilation is endemic.
In South Africa, the raping of women is a near normal. These are just the few instances of utter disrespect African political cultures have sustained in excuses for tradition and culture.
Here, there is incessant media coverage of the aspect of women coming under the spell of power and money. As much as they claim ascendancy in all manners of careers, women cannot shake off the influence they have attached to “gold digging”.
When one considers how women achieve their elevated positions, either through the political route or by appointment to high office in regard of their professional qualifications, it is difficult to avoid coming face-to-face with the aspect of improbable gender imbalance of “thigh power” or “bottom power”.
There will be virulent protestations to the contrary, but reference to the recent cover stories in the gutter press, will go a long way to allay these objections. What comes out in the public is maybe even a far-cleaner aspect of the dirt that goes on in private.
So, it goes without saying that women will be sexually disrespectfully treated, given the fact that they do not deserve thecritical acclaim that only moral and mental regard will offer. This has to be separated from the issue of the physical hard work that women tend to apply to their endeavours, far more attentively than their male counterparts are sometimes capable of.
This is where the Trumps of this world come in. They have already gained advantage in the exercise of their positions or their professions to be able to give largesse to the women. That is what Trump admits in his recordings of eleven years ago: that women are taken in by money and power to the exclusion of their moral standing.
Trump, and the fellows who were interviewing him, were laughing and sniggering as he boasted that the married woman he was going to interact with on the tube was going to like his groping her sexual parts and begging for his kisses. Indeed, in the video recording as he was meeting the woman, the fellows were egging him to kiss the woman.To bear Trump out, the woman pliantly obliged.
The disgust of the episode was apparent. But whether this will influence the manner of the November US presidential vote, has to be put to the American moral character that Trump is able to accurately reflect. For the African politician to be affected by lurid sexual references – forget about it – at least for now!
